


After It All

by chaWOOPa



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Gen, Link (Legend of Zelda) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Mute Link (Legend of Zelda), Mutual Hurt/Comfort, Past Character Death, Selectively Mute Link (Legend of Zelda), Trans Link (Legend of Zelda), Trans Male Character, Zelda (Legend of Zelda) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, ptsd mention, zelda has ptsd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:55:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22329697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaWOOPa/pseuds/chaWOOPa
Summary: Link puts a hand on Zelda’s shoulder as they finish the journey to the original Temple of Time. She is transfixed by the ruins of it, eyes tracing the slope of crumbled bricks and decaying guardians with a sadness so deep Link isn’t sure how she carries it.He forgets sometimes, when he is faced with Zelda’s sadness, that he carries one just as deep.Zelda turns to him, her eyes shining, and puts a hand over his where he has placed it on her shoulder.She doesn’t have to say anything, her eyes have already told him what he needs to know.
Relationships: Link & Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 84





	After It All

Link puts a hand on Zelda’s shoulder as they finish the journey to the original Temple of Time. She is transfixed by the ruins of it, eyes tracing the slope of crumbled bricks and decaying guardians with a sadness so deep Link isn’t sure how she carries it. 

He forgets sometimes, when he is faced with Zelda’s sadness, that he carries one just as deep. 

Zelda turns to him, her eyes shining, and puts a hand over his where he has placed it on her shoulder. 

She doesn’t have to say anything, her eyes have already told him what he needs to know. 

With Gannon gone from Hyrule, the monsters he used to command have all evaporated into dust. She is safe here in the ruins of this sacred temple, and she would like the time to mourn alone because of it. 

One-hundred years ago, Link would have refused her. Today, he nods and turns towards his own emotional confrontation. 

They are close to the place he woke up from his 100 year slumber.

Link has avoided this plateau since he left with a new paraglider and no memory, but Zelda needed to see the temple, and he needed to see the shrine. 

Link pauses in front of the opening to the Shrine of Resurrection and takes a deep breath of air no longer 100 years stale, but still 100 years cool. He lets his hand linger on the frame of the entrance and traces long the runes of it as he takes a step inside. 

He knows that there is more to be discovered about this place, knows that most of it isn’t memory or emotions, and yet he still cannot shake the feeling that he is missing something. 

He jumps down the initial ledge and lets himself feel a flash of amusement at the way the small puddle underneath splashes. He has done that so much more since he woke up; let the little things affect him. He still holds the majority of his thoughts and emotions to his chest, but he feels looser, lighter, different. He looks back up and into the main chamber of the room and feels his body grow heavier. He can see the place he slept in a way he didn’t the day he woke. It looks, well, it looks empty. It looks forlorn, without power or purpose, it looks sinister. 

Link forces his feet up the stairs and past the empty stone chests that had contained the clothes he had been left for when he woke. He still has them, folded in a drawer in his home in Hateno. He should get rid of them, probably, but something always stops him moments before he can let them go. 

Those garments are a century old. Those garments are a real, tangible link to the world he used to know. 

Link stops in the doorway to the actual room he woke up in. There is a new pedestal across from the one he had used to open the door with a forked weapon on it that glows softly with the colors of the four champions. He glances at it and decides he will investigate later, after he has had a moment to process. 

He moves slowly across the room and kneels down next to the dip in the floor for the bed. He put his hand on the edge of it, traces the grooves of the runes on the edge. It hits him, suddenly, that he has healed from wounds almost as bad as the ones that had put him in here in a matter of days. Had he been only wounded, he would have been awake before now. 

Link knows, in his head, that he has been calling the day he went under the day he died for a while, but it is something else entirely to acknowledge the truth of the matter. 

He has only spoken once since he woke up, but suddenly he cannot draw breath around the shape of the words clawing at his throat and fighting to leave his mouth. 

"I died," he says, and the words are quiet, raspy. It isn't enough. "I died." Link repeats. This time the words are stronger, but they leave the taste of bile behind. 

"Many people did," Link jumps as Zelda's soft voice sounds from behind him. He hears the rustling of her clothing, loose traveling pants she had gotten before they left Kakariko and the long blue tunic of the champion. She has lightweight traveling boots on and a pack around her waist, but she had refused to wear anything too tight. They had given her a tunic that fit her perfectly with very little loose fabric too it, but the moment the two were out of sight of the village Link had tossed her his bigger top. 

He understands the feeling of terror that comes with anything that reminds you of what trauma you have been through. He refuses to sleep with anything blocking his view of the stars even now, three years after getting out of a cave he doesn't remember being in for more than ten minutes, he cannot imagine having lived, trapped for 100 years only to be given something else to confine you. 

Link can still see the sadness in her eyes, but there is something different there now. 

"Your life was the only one I managed to save, that night. The guardians rampaged for almost two more days before I managed to trap Gannon," she comes and kneels next to him heavily, reaching out to trace the runes as well. "That the world kept turning, that time kept moving even while I held myself hostage in order to stop the apocalypse that had already taken my whole world from me…" she smiles sadly at him. "I don't know if I will ever be able to forgive myself." 

Link looks at the bed again. He wants to assure her that he understands, that every moment he is reminded that he slept for a hundred years while the world learned to continue on after it had ended, that he alone out of all of his people and all of their champions would be chosen to survive… Link catches sight of the burnt gold of the triforce on the back of his hand, dormant again now that the world is saved, and he feels suddenly ill. He wants to rip it from his skin, press it into the hand of the goddess who gave it to him, tell her to give it to someone else. He has lived in this story a thousand times and he has never complained, never asked her to take it back, told her to shove the triforce somewhere the sun doesn't reach so that no one will ever have to bear it again. 

He wants to take the symbol from his skin and send it back to the goddess. 

"Next time," he says quietly as he stares at the back of his hand, "next time I want her to give this to someone else." 

Zelda is quiet for a moment before reaching to cover his mark with the hand that has hers. "Me too," she admits quietly. "Me too Link." 

A teardrop hits their entwined hands and Link isn't sure whose it is but he doesn't care. They are allowed this moment of weakness after too many lifetimes of strength. 

The master sword is quiet at his back and his own golden triangle is as dull as Zelda's, but they weigh heavy on his mind. 

He leans into Zelda and the two of them cry. 

It is long past time they allowed themselves to do so.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey im MAD that the zelda has ptsd tag ISNT A THING and i had to MAKE IT. 
> 
> That baby has so much ptsd, _she fought the literal incarnation of evil for 100 years_ she has some BIG PTSD my boys. 
> 
> anyway they are queerplatonic and i love the so much and i will be prducing more content for them becasue SHIT i love them.


End file.
